


Loved I not Honor more

by reconditarmonia



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Loyalty, Military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia
Summary: Sergeant Lowe has to decide what she values most.





	Loved I not Honor more

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Edonohana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/gifts).



> Happy Femslashex!
> 
> Thank you to L and queenieofaces for beta and brainstorming help.

Four in the morning, light rain, a few stars in the sky. The sounds in the town were as regular as the sounds of a camp, the footfalls of sentries only hitting cobble instead of grass; the breeze off the river carried more confused sounds from the other half of Mosere, where the Auscian soldiers still went about their business among those townspeople who had fled the eastern bank and those of the western bank who refused to flee even with the Treverian army on their doorstep. It must have been market day. The market square was on the western bank; we had the inns, the forges, and the workhouse, where the Auscian soldiers we'd captured when taking the town were kept. My watch that night took me southwest to the sentries at the bridge, straining through the darkness at the unseen Auscians surely doing the same on the other bank, and back to the workhouse, guarded at the door and patrolled by my women on all sides.

I remember where I was when Captain Stern found me, because I'd just stopped to light my cigarette under the eaves of an inn and was thinking of how much its sign looked like the one on the corner tavern where I come from, right down to the funny foreign words, as one of our soldiers quartered there had called them. Mine was the Two Doves, this was the Three Doves. I heard footsteps coming in fast from the north, not the easy walk of the patrols, and she came round the corner flanked by two gendarmes. 

"Lowe," she said by way of greeting. Her face was flushed red and angry, and she reached out to snatch my cigarette from my mouth and throw it to the ground. Shocked and affronted, I didn't know what to say. "Stand up and fucking salute. How many drinks are you sleeping off under here?"

I'd seen the captain angry, but never like this. I stood up quickly to follow her order, nearly stumbling in my hurry, but keeping my balance; I hadn't had a drop. "I don't understand, ma'am, I —"

"Shut up. I'm relieving you of your watch. Report to the guardhouse before this conduct on the front lines starts to look less like stupidity and more like treason."

I could feel my face hot and my blood pounding. "Ma'am, I —"

She waved one hand at the gendarmes, who grabbed me by the arms. My first instinct was to shake them off, but all that would have done would have been to make it disobeying orders or resisting arrest, so I let them, even though the accusation of treason had made me go rigid with anger. It wasn't like I could salute again, so I just bowed my head, looking up at her under the brim of my hat. I couldn't see her face like this, but I knew her expression must be grim. "Let her sleep it off in a cell. In the morning, we'll see."

I let them march me through and then out of the streets whose quiet was kept by my women, to the guardhouse. They'd swiveled me around so quickly that I didn't even get a last look at her as she booked me.

* * *

Captain,

Now that I'm trying to write to you I don't know how to start. I hope you'll still let me call you that — anyway, "Miss Stern" would be absurd. But I guess a letter might be my only chance to thank you for what you did for me. 

You know I don't get drunk, of course, but the gendarmes found it easy enough to believe — what do you expect from one of those eel-eaters, right? Later everyone just assumed that you wanted me out of the way because I'd have stopped you. They're right about me — I'll always stop you from doing something stupid — but I wouldn't have had to stop you from doing something vile. We haven't always seen eye to eye, but I know that much. It means a lot to me that under the circumstances you thought to make sure I wasn't the officer on watch.

I don't know if you knew I was there, when they broke your sword; they didn't turn out the hospital or anything, but they managed to grab some of us for the ceremony before they shipped us back out, and mustered us up in the back. Big mix of uniforms, but we were behind the drums, so you might not have seen us, and at any rate you probably hadn't heard I'd been wounded when we took the western side. We stood in front of Legion House and waited for what seemed like ages to me, and when the drumming started and I saw you appear at the far end of the square, I could see that you felt like you were marching to your execution even before I could make out your face. I'm sure you wish no one had gotten to see that, but I'm glad I did, so that there was someone there who knows you didn't do it.

I hope you'll tell me why you said you did.

Sgt. Avigail Lowe

* * *

Close to noon, rain. We saw off the 4th Mounted and the 20th Foot, the last of the decimated regiments scrambling eastward across the bridge. Major Verville must have had some kind of orders, but as far as most of us guessed, our orders were to hold Mosere until the rest of the forces could regroup, to the last woman. It'd all be very heroic, and when Caers was the capital of a new Treverian province we'd have a statue, or a ballad, or both. Looking west that morning I had already seen the smoke from the Auscians' cooking fires; tomorrow, it'd be the dust rising up as they marched on us, and then the soldiers. The regulars of the Three Doves wouldn't have been Treverians for very long.

The streets of Mosere were narrow and bent, and it didn't take long for the 4th and 20th to disappear from view, but as they got smaller and disappeared between buildings and around corners, I saw, from across the bridge, another small shape dodging around the wounded and sick in carts and the weary on foot — a figure on horseback, getting larger as it came towards us instead of fleeing in the rout. An able enough rider, considering her private's uniform, and in some hurry; maybe a messenger with new orders. Major Verville was at the field headquarters set up in the former town hall, now the highest ranking officer in Mosere once again, pacing in a big emptied room; the messenger would go in, and when the Major came out we'd learn how we were going to die here.

She crossed the bridge towards us, navigating the cracks and the rubble where the retreating Auscians had failed to blow it up, and and I was able to make out more details: cropped dark hair under her hat, a scar across her nose and cheek. I realized with a shock that it was Captain Stern, whom I'd last seen being ceremoniously removed to Redgates, her decorations stripped from her coat and her sword broken. Had she been exonerated? News took a long time to arrive at the front; letters, too, if she'd written. I'd had letters from her before, but the last one I'd received had still been written from prison, and since she hadn't told me why she'd lied in the first place, I didn't know what exoneration would look like for her. The thought crossed my mind that I hadn't heard about her being exonerated because it hadn't happened and wouldn't happen; that maybe it wasn't a lie, and that with the tide of the war turning, the marshals and generals had changed their minds about not wanting someone like that in the army.

A sound from behind made me look away, my heart still in my mouth; Major Verville was standing behind me. "Good afternoon, Sergeant Lowe. Couldn't stand that room. Perfect timing, eh?"

"Yes, ma'am."

By now Captain Stern was approaching us, and Major Verville waved her down. She looked different now than she had the last time we were here together — more worn in the face, built more like a laborer than an officer. I wondered for a moment if the Major recognized her, but she put an end to my doubts as Captain Stern pulled up to a halt. "The Butcher of Mosere," she greeted her good-naturedly. "Welcome back."

Captain Stern's expression tightened. "Thank you, ma'am. I have orders from the generals in Auldon." She took a packet out of her coat. "I'm to relieve you here."

"Very good, Private Stern," Major Verville replied smoothly; if her heart leapt at the news, like mine would if I knew I was getting out of there, she didn't show it. "Why don't you see to your horse and then walk with me? Capital view along this way." It wasn't a suggestion. 

Captain Stern nodded. Her eyes met mine, and she seemed about to say something; I wanted it to be the explanation she owed me, to be some nonsense about how it'd be an honor to die alongside me here, to be everything she'd wanted to say to my face and thought she'd never be able to unless we met in Treveria years and years from now, when she'd have served out her sentence and maybe there'd be a peace that I'd survived to. I wanted her to tell me she was innocent, because it was easy to believe in her when I couldn't see her, but now she was here and I didn't understand how.

"Tell Private Stern where to go, Sergeant." Major Verville did seem to have an unpleasant ability to sneak up on her subordinates, honed over her years in the field, but this time I had only myself to blame, staring goggle-eyed for what must have been only a moment, in the end. 

"Yes, ma'am. Up this road and then south at the baths, we're quartered in the warehouses around the market square — _Private_." I remembered abruptly that that was what I should call her aloud; it felt strange in my mouth, and came out too forcefully. The Major smiled; she must have thought she was doing me a favor, giving me a little bit of petty revenge on a woman whose last act before becoming the Butcher of Mosere was to throw me in a cell, and I didn't doubt she took pleasure in the slight herself. Everyone here believed Captain Stern had been the one to kill the prisoners. No one knew I didn't believe it, and really, I had nothing to the contrary to rely on but my trust, a step out onto a lake I hoped was frozen.

Captain Stern, I realized, had never been in the western half of Mosere, not even in the smoke and confusion of battle, and could very well need the directions in spite of the cut — but I still didn't expect the smile she gave me. "Thank you, Sergeant." She spurred her horse onwards, and in a few moments had disappeared. I hadn't thought until then about how long it had been since I'd seen her smile, and how much I'd missed it.

* * *

Two in the afternoon, still rain. Major Verville had decamped, along with her orderly, as soon as her conference with Captain Stern ended, and Captain Stern had assembled the lieutenants and sergeants of the company for a sort of muster on the run, temporary command order in hand. When I'd caught up, summoned by a breathless private, she'd been taking stock of our position and already directing some of the others. At first I hadn't followed — this lieutenant to station her women in the buildings along the blacksmiths' row and wait for further orders, those sergeants to have every soldier under their command cram their packs with shot and supplies at random and then take up positions at the outskirts of the town, how could that be defensible? If Captain Stern's orders were to withdraw across the bridge and rain destruction on the Auscians at the only place they could cross the river, I could have understood it, but this, I couldn't even attribute to some obscure historical strategy from officer school. Then she'd seen me, and without a pause, continued, "Sergeant Lowe and her women will be the last to evacuate. Sergeant, you'll station your section at the west to supervise the powder store and hold off the enemy if necessary during the retreat, and be ready to move out on my order."

Evacuate. Not just the Major, we were all getting out of Mosere. So she'd come to save us. I'd looked at her, already focused elsewhere, still in her private's uniform and wet from the rain; say I don't believe in any of that honor and noblesse the way she does and it'd be true, because she still might have been a murderer, and I'd thought then that she was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen.

Later, after she'd dismissed us to our tasks and gone to oversee the evacuation, and I'd roused up my soldiers to their posts, she'd sent a runner to bring me to headquarters. I entered the old town hall and found her sitting on the floor in her shirt with her jacket and waistcoat over the back of a chair, hair sticking up as it dried, feeding papers into a small fire under a tin pot. "Supply records, maps and that sort of thing," she explained. "We can't let them be captured anyway, and I haven't had my tea all day." For the first time all day, she really looked at me. "How are you, Lowe?"

"Glad to be getting out of here, ma'am. Wishing it would stop raining," I answered, the long months behind us collapsing like a spyglass as I came in and laid my own jacket over another chair, then crouched to light a cigarette in the flames. Feeling like that wasn't much more than a polite answer, I added, "It's been a bitch of a campaign. And it's still strange to fight in these parts — every corner I turn, I think I'm going to see my neighbor or my cousin. I know they're not anywhere near here, but the towns look the same. The fields, too." Things had changed, but I knew tea and smoke with Captain Stern over a poor fire, even with the flames lighting her face on an overcast afternoon instead of at night; even, somehow, as a brief respite during an evacuation with the Butcher of Mosere. I stretched out my legs on the floor, the wounded one stiffer now than it used to be, and took a long drag.

Captain Stern poured the tea into a cup, and took a small sip, looking over the rim at me. "Think you'll get to see your girl back home soon?" she asked, carefully.

I stared at her. I hadn't mentioned anyone, as there wasn't anyone I was going with. My life was here. "You're the only person I've written any letters to from here," I said. It seemed like the only way to answer a question that suddenly was very important.

She looked away, breathing out. "Thank you for your faith in me. It's selfish, I know, I should wish you were away from the front lines, but I was so glad to see you were here."

The moment broke; I remembered the moment our eyes met by the bridge, and everything that was keeping me from trusting her now. "I go where they send me."

She let out a little laugh. "As do we all. I didn't think I'd be back."

"Yes, ma'am."

She fixed me with a look; even before we'd started to get on, she'd been able to see right through me. "You've never hesitated to tell me what you thought before. What's going on?"

What else could I do? This wasn't some question I could stonewall from a Lieutenant Schoolmarm. "I don't know how you're here. They can't have exonerated you — you'd be a captain again. Did you do it?"

"Oh." Captain Stern was silent for a moment, feeding more papers into the fire. The calluses on her hands were different now, built up from handling tools and moving rocks instead of wielding her sword and pistols. "No, I didn't. Verville did. Our agent in Varo told the generals that reinforcements were on their way, and we got the orders to capture this side before they arrived. We didn't have the women to spare to guard the prisoners, so she killed them."

She said it so matter-of-factly, but the next thing I knew, I'd dashed my cigarette into the fire, half blinded with anger and already halfway to the door without another word. My hands were shaking. Damn Mosere, damn Treveria — I'd jump on a horse and catch up with Major Verville and kill her myself. 

"Stop. Lowe, stop. _That's an order, Sergeant_!"

"Yes, _ma'am_." I stopped, breathing heavily. She looked shocked, like she'd forgotten for a moment that she didn't outrank me anymore, and like that mattered to me. I couldn't think if I'd ever felt this wild outside of battle.

"Don't — I need you here with me. Please, Lowe."

"She blamed you! I remember your _face_ at Legion House —" 

"She didn't blame me. She said she'd claim it was a revolt. As though it was the easiest thing in the world for her to lie — as though I'd think it was a wonderful idea." Captain Stern's voice grew rough, telling this, and she went back over to the fire to pick up her tea. I stared after her. "But if they'd been murdered, we could let the Auscians bury their bodies. I chose this. Don't throw away your honor on Verville."

"You know I don't believe in any of that." 

"I know that you believed in mine." She gestured at a small sheaf of papers that I'd assumed were documents destined for the fire, on the same chair as her jacket and waistcoat. When I untied the ribbon and looked through them, I recognized my own words, the letters I'd written her in prison professing my esteem for her and, yes, my faith in her honor. I could almost imagine that the slight warmth of the paper wasn't from the flames, but from keeping them next to her heart; that if I held them near my face, I'd smell laundry soap and sweat and her skin.

"Lowe." I'd been lost. "Maybe it wasn't fair, the way I thought of you when I was in prison. Like some sort of rock or lodestar, not my sergeant — to assume that you'd just carry on without needing anything from me. I should have told you what happened."

"I was everything you imagined of me." There'd been no bitterness in her words, and truth be told, even now I couldn't feel bad about the moments I'd doubted her, but I had to let her know that what she'd felt wasn't a lie. "Call it my trust in my own memory or my judgment, if you need a reason. It was only hard for me to believe in you when I saw you again." I tied the ribbon carefully around the letters again and gave them back to her, her fingers brushing mine. "I still don't know how you're here."

Captain Stern laid the letters back with her clothing. "The generals wanted me in charge of the evacuation."

She wouldn't look at me, and it was my turn to suspect she was hiding something. "Plenty of officers who aren't war criminals could do that. Major Verville could have done that."

"I suppose I'm just that good."

"Bullshit, ma'am."

She acknowledged it with a nod. "I've never been able to hide much from you, have I?"

"No, ma'am."

Captain Stern sighed. "I'm here to get you all out, and then blow up the bridge behind you. We're abandoning this campaign. I imagine they're sending out a new colonel to lead the regiment somewhere else."

"The Auscians tried blowing the bridge already, when we were trying to take this side," I answered without thinking. "It turns out you can't, from the banks. Something in the way it's built — a sapper would be able to explain it, but they left here on Tuesday. We'd already made it too far across when they tried."

“I know.” She’d poured herself more tea, and took another sip. 

It took me a moment to understand what she meant. "Captain. _Why_?" I'd seen her ignore orders before — I'd been irritated with her for ignoring orders, when she thought her ideas were better. She couldn't be on a suicide mission simply because they told her to take it.

Her reply was unexpectedly fierce, after that unnatural calm; her voice was hard, eyes glittering. "Because they're giving me the chance to die a soldier."

I found myself moving between her and the door, as if she'd go and blow herself up right now if I didn't stop her. "I won't let you do this."

"I can't order you to stand down, can I?"

"No, ma'am." 

"When I was about to destroy myself, the only thing I could think to do was to spare your honor." She'd stood up and come close to look me in the face, and was speaking quickly. "If I'd actually stood in your way just now when you wanted to throw it away, would you have fought me? Defied my will, even to avenge me?"

The question didn't seem to require an answer; it was absurd to think I'd hurt her for honor's sake. "If the army needs you to kill yourself to stop the Auscians, then they can raise their damned flag in Auldon itself! You said you needed me — what do you think I'm your sergeant _for_?"

Her expression softened, and she looked at me for a long moment. "Thank you, Sergeant." Then she punched me hard across the jaw, knocking me sideways so that I staggered into a table. I shook my head to clear the stars from my vision, realizing at once what she was about — I'd been in battles that mattered less than this — but she was already behind me, forearm pressing into my throat. I drove my elbow into her ribs once, twice, clawed at her arms, but she only let out a sound and hung on, and the room went black.

* * *

Dear Avigail,

Caers is beautiful even in winter; from up high, you can see all the red tile roofs covered with snow, and the long avenues of bare trees dusted in white. I think you'd like it. Prison cells themselves seem to be fairly similar across national borders, but I like the view from here.

I don't think many people can claim the distinction of being led through the streets in disgrace in two separate national capitals, but Auscia wanted their turn at a trial and execution, as a condition of the peace, and I'm sure you figure that they were able to demand almost anything at that point. It wasn't as lonely as the first time. They're very thorough here — do you know, our riders that came up when I was on the bridge, ready to light the powder, weren't even looking for me? They wanted Verville, as part of the entire chain of command involved in the massacre, and didn't know she'd already left. Starting tomorrow we'll all be in the dock, opposite the Auscian agents and their witnesses to our character. I think I can hope to see you in Treveria soon.

If it hadn't been for you, I might have gotten to the bridge sooner. Thank you, Sergeant.

Lucasta Stern


End file.
